World Briefing | Europe: Bulgaria: Garbage Piles Up In Sofia Protest

Published: January 14, 2005

Tons of garbage continued to pile up in the streets of Sofia, the capital, as protesters blocked access to the only landfill for the city of 1.3 million people for a seventh day. ''Epidemics could burst out any time now,'' the country's environment minister, Dolores Arsenova, warned. Residents of the Sofia suburb Suhodol say the dump is too close to their houses and began a day-and-night blockade last Friday, preventing the city's garbage trucks from disposing of its waste, an estimated 1,000 tons a day, leaving trash bins overflowing and a foul smell in the streets.